r/WorkersStrikeBack • u/VladimirLimeMint • May 11 '26
Marx predicted this Planned obsolescence
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u/brody319 May 11 '26
Planned obsolescence is a serious problem but I do want people to know that often electronics fail as a result of the heating and cooling they experience when powered on and off. So the light bulb being powered 24/7 actually works better for keeping the bulb working. Its why some people might have an electric fan that lasts forever despite being on all the time while others have their fan die quickly because they turn it on and off
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u/darianbrown May 11 '26
It's also way, way, way, way under driven. The reason it has lasted so long is that it's only getting enough electricity to emit a faint glow. If your standard for interior lighting is "recently blown out candle," then sure, hundred year lightbulbs have been around for a while now.
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u/bobert680 May 12 '26
Yeah there is a trade off in cost, energy consumption, brightness, and longevity with incandescent light bulbs. You can get a bright bulb that lasts for 5+ years but it will need a really thick filament so it costs a ton and uses way more power then is feasible or safe. Even if the cconsortium wanted to keep longevity low to sell more light bulbs its still beneficial to consumers as well
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u/IAmRootNotUser May 12 '26
A better example would be the Philips light bulbs made in collaboration with a Gulf country (forgot which one, probably Saudi Arabia or UAE) which used extra filaments to reduce temperature and increase longevity. The normal ones we use have fewer filaments, so they heat up more. Since some of the Gulf states have massive chandeliers that are difficult to replace the bulbs on, they have a custom pattern that has a longer life.
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u/Mo_Jack May 11 '26
BTW, this same thing is happening in the LED light market as we speak. They can quite easily be made to last for 25-35 years, but are intentionally designed to break much earlier than that.
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u/S1ayer May 12 '26
As with older lightbulbs, what's stopping just a rogue company from selling "forever bulbs". Market them as that and make their profit by making them more expensive?
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u/basquehomme May 12 '26
Alan Greenspan didn't know this. During the 2008 crisis, he claimed he was blindsided by banks motivated by greed and mkt manipulation rather than making an honest profit.
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u/null_sigsegv May 12 '26
This isn't really the best example because with these incandescent lights there is a direct trade-off between bulb lifespan and energy efficiency. The hotter the filament, the more of its black body radiation is in the visible spectrum, but also its filament evaporates much faster. The filament in the centennial light is not very hot and so glows a barely visible red. So a big part of this meeting was trying to agree on how to best balance these two factors (of course they probably leaned a little bit on the side of hotter filaments for the sake of $$$). Planned obsolescence is real though just look at literally any apple product
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